12 September 2017 National guidance published last week by NHS Improvement (NHSI) on the future of pathology services, proposes the consolidation of 105 individual pathology services within NHS hospitals in England into 29 networks. Alongside national savings of around £200million by 2021, laboratories will also benefit from increased efficiencies, reduced variation and better outcomes for patients. In 2013 the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust and Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust formed Liverpool Clinical Laboratories (LCL), a joint contractual venture. Earlier last year, LCL successfully reconfigured the laboratory at Aintree as a spoke laboratory to a hub laboratory at the Royal. Following the successful establishment of the proposed service delivery model between the host Trusts; Liverpool Clinical Laboratories fully supports the proposed network model for Merseyside. Collaboration on a service delivery model is a complex and challenging process, but there is no doubt that consolidated purchasing and standardisation

27 July 2017 Liverpool Clinical Laboratories’ (LCL) blood sciences laboratory was officially opened this month at Aintree University Hospital, following a £600k refurbishment. The laboratory reconfiguration which took 12 weeks to complete, brings together haematology, transfusion, biochemistry and specimen reception into a centralised and open plan working space, opposite Aintree’s Urgent Care and Trauma centre. The new way of working, recommended by the Carter review and known as a hub and spoke delivery model, is part of national plans to improve the quality and efficiency of pathology services for hospitals and GPs. Spoke laboratories or ‘hot labs’ such as the one at Aintree, process urgent work from A&E, trauma centres, acute wards and theatres and more specialist tests for infections like Sepsis and MRSA are sent to a hub laboratory, such as the LCL hub based at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital. Dr Ian Watson a retired Consultant

19 June 2017 Liverpool Clinical Laboratories was awarded the ‘Widening Participation Award’ at the 2017 Learning Matters Health and Care Awards, last week in Manchester. The awards are part of an adult learning campaign from Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) and Health Education England (HEE) which aims to highlight the contribution adult learning makes to individual, community and economic wellbeing. The overarching theme of the awards was ‘lifelong learning is good for people’ and organisers were especially keen to hear about initiatives which have supported a diversity of people into the NHS. The award recognised LCL’s Traineeship Programme launched earlier this year, which trains 16-24 year olds as Medical Laboratory Assistants. The aim of the programme is to give young people in Liverpool the opportunity to explore careers in healthcare science and further education, something which they might not have traditionally considered. The course is run in partnership with Liverpool in

24 May 2017 Dr Alex Haragan, trainee Histopathologist in Cellular Pathology at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories, has been awarded a highly prestigious North West England Medical Research Council (MRC) Fellowship. Alex will spend the next three years studying how the expression by lung cancer tissue of a protein known as PD-L1, which is used is to predict how these cancers will respond to the new immune modulating drugs, relates to other features of the tumour, such as the pattern and load of genetic mutations and the tumour’s immune environment. The ultimate aim of the project is to improve the predictive power of PD-L1 testing and permit more accurate and effective use of these powerful immune modulating therapies in individual patients. Applicants for a Fellowship face tough competition with only the very best trainees and strongest projects being successful each year. Professor John Gosney, Consultant Thoracic Pathologist at LCL,will be supervising Alex’s

10 May 2017 Professor Sarah Coupland, has been selected as the first UK recipient of the International Council of Ophthalmic (ICO) Pathology award for her international contributions to research and teaching in the field of eye pathology, particularly uveal melanoma. She’s no stranger to making history either: since 2013 she has held the title of George Holt Chair of Pathology, a role which has been held by men since it was first established, over 100 years ago in 1894. On winning the ICO award Professor Coupland said: “For me, receiving this award is something very special. Professor Naumann, who jointly founded the award with his wife, contributed so much to eye pathology; he’s considered one of the ‘greats’ in this area. I actually met him several times during my training in Berlin over 10 years ago, and attended some of his lectures. At the time, my German was not perfect,

10 March 2017 Dave Eccleston was awarded the Chief Scientific Officer’s Equality and Diversity Leadership Award, at the 2017 Healthcare Science Awards ceremony in London this week. As Head of Modernising Scientific Careers, Dave was recognised for his innovative and inclusive approach to the traineeship programme offered to young people in Merseyside, by Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. The Healthcare Science Awards celebrate the diversity of contributions healthcare science makes to the NHS and patient care through leadership, clinical research, technological innovation and communicating science to the public. On winning the award Dave said: ‘We are working very hard in Liverpool to make careers in healthcare science accessible to everyone, regardless of their background and we’ve designed our traineeships to be inclusive for students of all abilities, including those with learning disabilities. My job is to ‘modernise’ scientific careers and part of that is to find new ways of working; recognising that not everyone

28 February 2017 #RareDiseaseDay takes place on the last day of February each year, aiming to raise awareness of research into rare diseases and how living with one impacts a person’s life. In Liverpool, Liverpool Clinical Laboratories are working on finding a treatment for a disease so rare, it affects just 66 people in the UK. Alkaptonuria (AKU) or ‘black urine disease’ is an inherited disorder caused by a mutation of the gene homogentisate dioxygenase (HGD), affecting around one in 250,000 people. It’s a lifelong condition and there’s currently no specific treatment or cure other than helping patients to manage the condition through pain medication and joint replacements. You can hear more from people living with AKU here. The national Robert Gregory Alkaptonuria Centre was opened in 2012 to provide patients with access to a team of specialists who can help them manage their care and is based at The Royal

3 February 2017 Professor John Gosney was awarded the 2017 ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his contribution to thoracic oncology at the Annual British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG) last week in Dublin. The ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ recognises an individual who has made a significant contribution to the management of thoracic malignancies in the UK and Ireland. Professor Gosney leads a team of pathologists and technicians which analyse and profile lung cancers to allow precise, personalised management of the disease. Liverpool has one of the highest mortality rates from lung cancer in the UK and the service provided by Professor Gosney’s team at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories (LCL), has led to its recognition internationally as a centre of excellence, in this rapidly-changing area of diagnostics. On receiving his award John said: “Lung cancer diagnostics has become increasingly complex over the last decade and accurate tumour profiling is now critical to appropriate management of